Thesis Title

Author

Date of Graduation

Spring 2004

Degree

Master of Arts in Writing

Department

English

Committee Chair

R Jones

Keywords

play, guilt, accident, photograph, image

Subject Categories

Creative Writing

Abstract

Green Ash is a stage play focusing on two weeks in the life of Rob Percy and three of his friends. Rob is a twenty-five-year-old college dropout who floats from job to job, clearly unhappy with his life but apparently uninterested in doing anything about it. Seemingly indifferent to Rob's condition, his roommate and best friend Charlie kicks him out of their apartment. Rob goes to live with his girlfriend, Marie, a copy editor for a local newspaper, and her roommate Karen, an elementary school principal. Through the course of the play, Rob's friends discover that his depression stems from a mysterious hit and run accident from one year ago in which a pedestrian was killed on a highway in Nebraska. To get him back on his feet, Karen and Marie arrange a job for Rob as a crossing guard for Karen's school. However, the job produces a catastrophe when a young girl is killed in an accident under Rob's watch. The devastating psychological aftermath of the second accident causes Rob to reveal that he was the driver responsible for the death on the Nebraska highway. In their various ways, Rob's three friends must respond to the task of convincing him that life can still be fulfilling even in the wake of tragedy.